Free Speech on the Internet - Essay Example

Freedom of Speech: The Case of Internet Humans are bestowed with some freedom on their acts, speech and expression. The freedom of speech is one of the ideas which are greatly debated around the globe and has been given significant attention. The freedom of speech phenomenon calls for an autonomous position to the speaker or writer when he tries to express his own opinions and thoughts. Freedom of speech provides people with different views about life, political condition, people, education, society and the whole world.

This freedom is not aimed to defame anyone or anything but people provide their deepest thoughts and perceptions about different issues. These varying ideas and opinions provide the uninformed with a wide range of possibilities and sufficient grounds to make their own judgement. Hence freedom of speech, in this context, must remain untied with restrictions and laws. The criticism against freedom of speech is the fact that people may use this right in order to defame other people, develop controversies, provide an easy platform to make sex talks and the like common and negatively change people’s arguments.

The criticisers believe that restrictions must be imposed in order to protect people’s privacy and reputation from the abusers of this freedom. The justification to their criticism is the increasing debates over political, social and religious issues. The increasing conflicts and worsening law and order situation provide them with the chance to stand against such freedom. In my opinion, all these arguments are, to a great extent, baseless. Milton describes in Areopagitica two kinds of people: the prudent ones and others who are imprudent.

Prudent class of people are able to distinguish between good and bad, reasonable and unreasonable; imprudent, on the other hand, are unaffected by any judgements. In other words, we may say that prudent class has the power to analyze, asses and judge every event, claim or argument; whereas, imprudent do not have their own opinion and they lack the power of expressing and judging. Hence, imprudent remain unaffected by the opinions and expressions of others and prudent accept the claims only if they have any instance of truth in them.

Moreover, it is also a noticeable fact, that any restrictions on freedom of speech may keep people from exposing the truth which is against society, political system or well-known personalities. In conclusion, we may say that freedom of speech is a right of people and must not be violated by unnecessary laws and regulations either in real life or on internet. Freedom of speech provides people with both sides of the picture to understand the matter completely. This freedom is the right of every human and cannot be taken away.

Of this freedom, certain people categorize the type of conversation or exposures to be omitted. The hate speeches, sex talks, pornography, sex chartrooms and so on. It should be noted that freedom of speech is to provide people to share information and spread their knowledge. It should be used for fruitful purposes rather than the modern usage which destroys moral, ethical and social values. Freedom of speech on internet goes beyond leading a sexually rich and hate dominant environment. The freedom is to spread words on various social, cultural, political, religious and general issues.

An unbiased view is provided once people are able to analyze both positives and negatives; good and bad; pros and cons of a subject, idea or issue. Sex education and sexuality issues over the internet can also be helpful in spreading knowledge about related issues like harms of unsafe sex etc. Internet can be used to educate people on the right usage of freedom of speech and not to violate it by spreading wrongful information about any topic. It can also help fostering a socially sound environment by leading discussions and forums for people interested in the topic.

Internet or any other medium is not isolated from providing people with their right to speech but the use of it may be different and negative. The same medium may also be used to spread positive knowledge and educate people on the abuse of a certain medium which needs to be avoided mutually.